Violinist Adele Anthony to lead free ESO master class with area students Nov. 2
Violinist Adele Anthony will present a free master class from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Gail Borden Public Library, 270 N. Grove Ave. in downtown Elgin.
The event, sponsored by S.E. Ainsworth & Family, and a project of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra and the Gail Borden Public Library, is free and open to the public.
Musicians participating in the class are violinists Stella Childs, performing Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, Adagio by J.S. Bach; Ella Saptura, playing Violin Concerto No. 3 in B Minor, Movement 1 by Camille Saint-Saëns and Annaliesa Caswell, performing Concerto No. 1, Movement 1 by Niccolo Paganini.
The master class is part of educational programming offered by the ESO during the Classic Series concert weeks.
Adele Anthony was born in Singapore as the daughter of Alphonse Jivaras Anthony, the founding concertmaster of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. She began to play the violin at the age of 2½ when the family settled in Tasmania. She subsequently attended Dernancourt Primary School, South Australia, and studied violin in Adelaide with Lyndall Hendrickson and Beryl Kimber. At age 13, in 1984, Anthony was the youngest winner of the ABC Instrumental and Vocal Competition, (now known as the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards), performing the Violin Concerto by Jean Sibelius with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. She was later the winner of the 1996 Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition. She subsequently studied with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School in New York for eight years. Her recordings include Philip Glass's Violin Concerto No. 1 (1999/2000 on Naxos Records), Arvo Pärt's "Tabula Rasa" with Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (on Deutsche Grammophon) and Ross Edwards' Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Maninyas and Sibelius's Violin Concerto in D minor with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arvo Volmer (Canary Classics CC09). She is married to violinist Gil Shaham.
Stella Childs is a sophomore at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has been playing violin since age 9 and is currently studying violin performance with Meg Freivogel McDonough (Jupiter String Quartet) and Spanish. Childs is a member of the University of Illinois Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Donald Schleicher, and the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Stephen Alltop. She earned an Honorable Mention in the Smith Competition at the School of Music in spring 2019. Most recently, she was awarded the Susan Starrett Scholarship in Violin, for promising violin majors, and the Chip Davis - Mannheim Steamroller Orchestra Award, for a high-achieving representative of the UISO. Childs was a member of the Elgin Youth Symphony Orchestra for nine seasons. In 2018, she won the Young Artist Concerto Competition, and she is proud to have been a member of both of the EYSO's Honors String Chamber Ensembles: the Hanson String Quartet (2015-16) and the Maud Powell String Quartet (2016-18).
Ella Saptura is a freshman at James B. Conant High School in Hoffman Estates, currently studies with Desiree Ruhstrat. She began her musical studies at the age of 4 on violin and more recently added viola as her second instrument. Ella is also a fellow of Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative cohort, a program that supports underrepresented ethnic groups in classical music. Ella has received top prizes and awards from Sejong Music Competition, Music Festival in Honor of Confucius, the Society of American Musicians, Walgreens Concerto Competition, Great Composer Competition Series, as well as DePaul Concerto Festival for Young Performers. An enthusiastic orchestral musician, Ella is a member of Midwest Young Artist Conservatory and the recipient of Rami Solomonov MYAC merit scholarship. She performs with MYAC Symphony orchestra and has served as the co-concertmaster of the Concert orchestra. Her summer studies have included HeifetzPEG and Philadelphia International Music Festival where she has worked with Bela Horvath, Kimberly Fisher, and Marc Rovetti, among others. Ella made her solo orchestral debut in violin with the MYAC Concert Orchestra as the overall winner of the MYAC junior division of 2017 Walgreens Concerto Competition. In March 2018, she made her solo orchestral debut in viola with Oistrakh Symphony of Chicago as one of the winners of the junior division of DePaul Concerto Festival for Young Performers.
Annaliesa Caswell lives in the hills of northwestern Illinois with her parents and five siblings. She is studying music through Valley City State University as well as taking violin lessons from Rachel Handlin and working part time at an insurance agency. In her spare time, she has lots of fun playing sports with her siblings, crafting, and organizing things.
Music lecturer and composer Jim Kendros will discuss the ESO's upcoming concert "Bolero! Chabrier, Edwards & Ravel" during the free Listeners Club events on Wednesday, Oct. 30, at 11 a.m. at Greenfields of Geneva, 0N801 Friendship Way, and 1 p.m. at the Gail Borden Public Library, 270 N. Grove Ave., Elgin; and Thursday, Oct. 31 at 2 p.m. at Barrington Area Public Library, 505 N. Northwest Hwy., Barrington. No registration is required for the Geneva program. To register for the Elgin and Barrington programs, visit www.elginsymphony.org.
This weekend's concerts will be at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 3, at the Hemmens, 45 Symphony Way in Elgin, and 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 4, at the Harris Theater for Music & Dance in Chicago. Tickets for the Elgin concerts are $35-$85; $10 for youth. Tickets for the Chicago concert are $40-$60. There is valet or free parking in Elgin.
For tickets, visit ElginSymphony.org or call 847-888-4000.
Music Director Andrew Grams will give a pre-concert chat before the Nov. 2-3 concert that feature Chabrier's "España," Edwards' "Maninyas Violin Concerto," Ravel's "Mother Goose" ballet and Ravel's "Bolero."